How To Organize Your Tonex Pedal

The Tonex is truly revolutionary. Even as amp simulators and emulators have approached tonal equivalence, the feel wasn't accurate. A real tube amp can have a wide dynamic range, cleaning up as you play softly and distorting the harder you pick. It almost feels alive, like a beast you have to tame - the way Albert King would control the bite and squeal of his Silverface Fenders with just his hands.

The Tonex actually has this! And with studios all over the world capturing every amp imaginable, this means you can experience all the legendary gear of your heroes, something unprecedented in history. It also means you can have as many historic amps on stage and in the studio with you as bands like Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers did.

This can easily become overwhelming! This guide is to help you organize and maximize the 150 slots on your Tonex.

First, define your musical goal. For example, if you're in a country band, it won't make much sense to fill all your slots with high gain captures. Figure out what sounds will suit your musical swiss army knife best. Do some research, read about different amps (Amped! and the Guitar Amplifier Encyclopedia both great books), find out what your favorite player's used or use.

Then collect your captures! I prefer Amalgam Captures, they nail that realistic feel discussed earlier. Grab the Tone Models for all the amps you want on stage with you, and then import them into the Tonex software. 

Those Tone Models will have to be saved as Presets before they can be dragged onto the pedal. You don't have to make them yourself since they're always included, but I've found I can keep better track of the ones I need the most by creating my own. I make Presets from all the Tone Models I think I may need - knowing that I'll have to pick and choose when it comes time to actually fill the pedal. I mostly copy the labeling Amalgam uses, including organizing by gain level, except I ignore the channel designation and then number the capture. For example if an amp has two different channels, an A and B, and each one has a clean capture, I'll just label them CL1 and CL2. I then save these all to a custom folder.

My Presets end up with a structure like this: MFR/MODEL/GAIN LEVELx/EQ description. 

Then I'll make custom folders for each gain level, just to make adding them to the pedal a bit more clear: clean, edge, crunch, dimed, drive, lead/gain.

Now we can start adding them to the pedal! If you have more presets than slots available, try focusing on the things an amp does well. For example, maybe forego the clean captures of a Marshall but not its crunch captures.

I add them first by ascending gain, and secondly by alphabetizing. That way when I'm scrolling the pedal and I see the alphabetizing restart, I know I've reached a different "gain pool." I mostly play hours-long blues sets which are improvised, so I focus on tons of clean, edge and crunch captures, with just a smattering of really high gain stuff at the end of the pedal. When it comes time to pick a new amp during a gig, I head to the appropriate "gain pool" first, and then it's fun to leave it up to chance as to which amp exactly gets chosen. This really helps to keep things fresh and interesting, a crucial component for both me and the audience. 

This is where defining your goals earlier will really help, to discern what kind of organization will best fit your needs. For some players, adding the captures by amp maybe makes more sense. For bands with really structured setlists, you can add the captures in the same order as your set. It may suit some players to have 150 completely different amps captured, while others may need 150 captures of nothing but Fender amps, or nothing but tweed Fenders. The options are infinite.

Don't forget you can also combine any effects pedals with the Tonex. I have a TC Electronic Rusty Fuzz going into a Boss SD-1 going into a Behringer Hellbabe wah in front of my Tonex, and I use the time-based effects from the Positive Grid Spark 40 I plug into (with all the pre-amp effects and amp sim turned off in the chain). This greatly expands the range of what the Tonex already does, and basically puts the recording studio at your feet wherever you're performing.